Fifteen years ago, on this day, July 9, 2008 George Bush, who had been President thanks to his dad’s mates on the Supreme Court, told the G8 “Goodbye from the world’s greatest polluter.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that George Bush had served two terms as President having been handed the first one by the Supreme Court and then legitimately winning the second albeit with some boxy help, during the second debate with John Kerry
Bush at the G8 had that typical smirk and wanted to, as we now call it, “own the libs,” which he was very good at. And he conceded that yes, the US is the world’s biggest polluter. And it goes back to notions of the United States “way of life” being non negotiable, as his spokesperson had said in early 2001.
What I think we can learn from this is that when high carbon behaviours are “non-negotiable” and you don’t have any decent forms of mass provision, then yeah, you’re gonna be the world’s biggest polluter, and it’s actually not something to be proud of, or joke about, asshole.
What happened next
The world’s biggest polluter kept at it. Obvs.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.